features archive

To kick things off, at 7:00pm this evening (Monday) is the Port of Vancouver Public Hearing at the Port of Vancouver administrative building, 3103 NW Lower River Road, Vancouver WA 98660.

On Tuesday 7/23, community members have the opportunity to further educate themselves on environmental issues at the Fossil Fuel Export Forum from 6:30-8:30pm, at the Leaven Community Center at 5431 NE 20th Ave. (X Killingsworth) in Portland.

KBOO Community Radio 90.7 will be featuring Climate Updates on Wednesday 7/24, from 11:00am-noon during the program Recovery Zone. The program will inform listeners about various issues pertaining to the environment, including: planned NW fossil fuel terminals

On Thursday 7/25 at 5:30pm will be the Funeral March to Bury Big Oil, until Big Oil and Keystone are laid to rest at 7:30pm. The march begins at the intersection of NE 30th Ave & NE Alberta, Portland 97211. Portland's LoveBomb Go-Go Marching Band will lead the parade, and anti-Keystone XL signs as well as endangered species puppets will be making appearances.

Saturday 7/27 is Summer Heat NW- Columbia River Climate Action. As Big Coal, Oil, and Gas aim to transform the NW coastline from Oregon up to Alaska into a vast fossil fuel corridor with over 15 proposed terminals, folks will come together on this day for some family-friendly action

A call has been put out for a National Day of Action by Al Sharpton so Campaign to End the New Jim Crow is organizing one here in Portland.
SATURDAY 2PM @ Federal Courthouse located at 1000 SW 3rd Ave (SW 3rd ave and SW Main st)

We are doing 2pm instead of 12pm because we usually meet at that time. so to avoid too much confusion and to make sure we get some work done we decided to call it for 2pm instead.

If you would like to join us for our meeting then check out the facebook event here- https://www.facebook.com/events/687032271322286/Campaign to End the New Jim Crow General Meeting
11am PCC Cascade 705 N Killingsworth st
Student center on 2nd floor in room 204 or in the cafeteria (same building first floor)

The event will also help begin a four-week countdown to the 50th anniversary event for the March on Washington on August 24, which will include Martin Luther King III, and which Sharpton said will be centered on Trayvon Martin and the Voting Rights Act.

MONDAY JULY 15 - 6:00PM Rally for Abortion rights in solidarity with the women of Texas Pioneer Square - Portland

The nation stands at the edge of a historic reversal. Hard won gains of the women's rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s are about to be turned back with devastating results for women across the country. Abortion, already a barely accessible right for most women, is now being made extinct as conservative politicians attempt to press their advantage in certain states in an opportunistic fashion.

But the problem we face is deeper. In Texas, the legislature has used every legal (and some illegal) trick in the book to make sure that the pro-choice majority is not heard. The current legislation under consideration represents some of the most draconian limits on abortion rights ever. And instead of allowing normal democratic procedures to resolve the issue, the legislature has relied on a rigged process to force the bill through. A few examples are worth mention: every procedural objection that was made to Wendy Davis's historic filibuster; the refusal to hold state-wide hearings to allow affected communities to testify about the consequences of the legislation; the intentional misreporting of how many people testified in opposition to the legislation; the years of gerrymandering which make it nearly impossible for the legislature to reflect the real wishes of the population; the organizing of "special sessions" to push through legislation.

The current legislation is too important to allow these deficits in the democratic process to go unchallenged. The bills in Texas would close down the overwhelming majority of clinics which provide abortions and thereby eliminate all of the ancillary services those clinics also provide -STD testing, family planning, health care. That some of these clinics are also the only places where low-income, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals are able to get health services means that this legislation will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable members of society.

"Postal truckers, mail handlers and mail processing clerks are losing their jobs to profiteering, private corporations," declared Jamie Partridge, a retired letter carrier who vowed to join a civil disobedience action Saturday morning, June 15th at the Portland Air Cargo Center. "We protest the privatization of the public postal service. We oppose the destruction of family wage, union jobs and the delay of the people's mail. We intend to disrupt this attack on our communities."

On May 25th, activists around the world will unite to 'March Against Monsanto.' The event will begin at 11am Pacific time in US cities. Portlanders will begin the event in Holladay Park and march peacefully through the Lloyd District Neighborhood. Area community members are coming together via Facebook to join in the effort, exercise their First Amendment rights and bring awareness to the growing controversy over ethical concerns surrounding the political influence of the multinational biotech corporation Monsanto and the safety of the genetically modified foods it produces.

Thank you all so very much for your concern for the well being of not just yourself but the rest of the world. If you would like to volunteer, please send an email to marchagainstmonsantopdx@gmail.com. Again, thank you so very much!

Guantanamo Hunger Strike/Vigil
Begins May 16th at 3:00 PM in front of Portland City Hall

(Look for a large colorful banner and people wearing prison-style orange jumpsuits.)

Seventy-one-year-old S. Brian Willson, a Viet Nam veteran member of Veterans For Peace, Portland Chapter 72, beginning Sunday, May 12 reduced his food intake by more than 85 percent, fasting on 300 calories a day in solidarity with the 130 uncharged Guantanamo prisoner hunger strikers now in deteriorating health, many of whom are being force-fed. Willson, a trained lawyer and criminologist, anti-war activist and author, lives by the mantra: "We are not worth more; They are not worth less." He joins 65-year-old grandmother Diane Wilson, a fifth-generation Texas shrimper, anti-war activist and author, who began an open-ended, water-only fast on May 1 outside the White House, and intends to fast until the prisoners are freed. There are more than 1,200 people around the country participating in a rolling hunger strike to bring attention to the plight of the fasting prisoners at Guantanamo, who have been illegally detained for over ten years with little recourse. May 16 is the 100th day of the hunger strike. The hunger strike/fast demands President Obama take immediate action to close the prison and release the prisoners. [...]

A total 166 prisoners from 25 countries remain housed in the U.S.-constructed and operated gulag (2002) at Guantanamo, located on Cuban soil without Cuba's permission. [...]

The Portland Chapter of the Social Welfare Action Alliance and the Portland State University School of Social Work are holding their third Community Based Practice Conference "Voices on the Ground." This year's theme is Resistance and Resilience.The event is being held Saturday, June 1st at PSU School of Social Work

On Saturday, June 1st, 2013 at Portland State University's School of Social Work, a one-day conference will be held on the theme: ?"Voices on the Ground: Resistance and Resilience"

Hosts of this event include:? School of Social Work, Portland State University (Community-Based Practice Concentration)? Social Welfare Action Alliance - Portland Chapter

This third annual gathering seeks to build a network of community-oriented practitioners, and to help catalyze and consolidate community social work in the region. All are invited to attend and participate, including human service workers, activists, service users, students, academics, and other allies.

This year our theme is "Resistance and Resilience", and we are organizing around the focus areas of Human Rights, Criminalization, Revolutionary Tools and Margin to Center:

We are very proud to announce our keynote speaker, Ethel Long-Scott! Registration information available on the conference website: http://tinyurl.com/voicesontheground. While this is a fee-based event, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Announcement of a community volunteer opportunity
Volunteer opportunity: Become a Tree Scout with Portland Fruit Tree Project!

As a Tree Scout volunteer, you will help to find and register fruit trees in your neighborhood whose fruit might otherwise go to waste. Tree scouts serve as a vital liaison between PFTP and tree owners, helping us to connect with people that want to share their bounty with the community. It's a fun way to meet neighbors and help make locally grown produce available to all. Good record-keeping and reporting are essential to this position. All the necessary materials and information will be provided. You can expect to spend approximately 2 hours per week (on average) on this volunteer position, which begins June 22nd and goes through October.

Come rally to protect Oregon's cougar from being killed with hounds! We are staging the rally on May 8th, noon to 1:30 on the Capitol steps and media will be there. We have posters, just need bodies!

Oregonians voted twice to end the hunting of cougar with hound dogs. We need to be assured that our vote for Measure 18 is honored before this irreplaceable resource, the cougar, disappears!

This rally is to stop the bills that ignore the voter's voice and the protecton M18 offers cougars. STOP the NRA and Safari Club (International) H.B.2624 and H.B. 2390 designed by Brian Clem, HB 3395 by Sherrie Sprenger, and Senate Bill 428! All these bills are the same! These bills allow cougars to be killed by using hound dogs. This is abusive to the dogs, the cougar and the cougar cubs! [...]

The fourth Annual Law and Disorder Conference will take place May 10th-12th, at Portland State University and will feature a panel discussion on the recent grand jury raids in the northwest.

We are excited to announce the Fourth Annual Law and Disorder Conference, May 10-12th 2013, at Portland State University. This year's conference features a special panel about grand jury resistance with members of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression and the Committee Against Political Repression. A special keynote will be given by former political prisoner Jihad Abdulmumit, co-chair for the Jericho Movement, as well as his highly acclaimed theatrical performance "Political Incarcerations". Other special presentations will be given by Sacramento Prisoner Support, David Hill (American Indian Movement), Portland Rising Tide, Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, Right 2 Survive and Portland Industrial Workers of the World, as well as many other local organizations.

L&D was founded in 2010 by members of the NW Student Coalition, a consortium of radical student groups in the Pacific Northwest from PSU, Mt. Hood Community College, Reed College and Washington State University-Vancouver in the aftermath of the police murders of Aaron Campbell and Keaton Otis in Portland and Oscar Grant in the Bay Area. The general theme of the conference has been to bridge the gap between different traditions of radical politics. The first and foremost goal has been to raise the issues of U.S.-held political prisoners, their existence contrary to denial on the part of the state, and practical discussions regarding their support and amnesty. Secondly, we engage in a critical dialogue about political repression, from the historical targeting and incarceration of activists in the FBI's counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) in the second half of the 20th century to the most recent manifestations such as the PATRIOT ACT and Homeland Security. The third theme is the abolition of the Prison- Industrial Complex and finding community alternatives to the police.

This conference calls for people, movements, organizations and collectives to present alternative accounts to the political dimensions of civic engagement, mutual aid and revolution as they relate to economics, politics, invention, technology, work, artistic and cultural production, the body, pedagogy and social change. [...]

(PORTLAND, OR) - THE NORTHWEST FILM CENTER proudly presents the premiere screening of PROJECT VIEWFINDER, the culminating work of a four-month mentorship program for homeless young adults. The film will be screened on Wednesday, May 1 at 6pm in the Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium inside the Portland Art Museum. Admission is free to the public.

The Northwest Film Center announces:
The Free Premiere Screening of "Project Viewfinder"
May 1, 2013 @ 6PM - In the Whitsell Auditorium, located in the Portland Art Museum.

May Day Evening - come see these videos after the march -

PROJECT VIEWFINDER began in January 2013 after the Film Center sought out young adults transitioning from homelessness to self-sufficiency that were interested in learning media production techniques. Working three days per week and led by School of Film lead faculty member Bushra Azzouz and supporting filmmakers, the project empowers participants to tell their stories using the medium of film. PROJECT VIEWFINDER is endeavoring to engage the Film Center's School of Film with underserved members of our community, seeking to enact change on a direct level.

Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights invites you to attend the conference

The Arab Revolutions of 2011 rocked world politics. Starting in Tunisia and Egypt and spreading to Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria, millions of ordinary people took to the streets, occupied their workplaces, and challenged dictatorial regimes that had ruled for decades. The revolutions have also reshaped the geopolitics of the region forcing the US to adjust its strategy in an effort to maintain its hold, setting regional powers jostling for stronger positions in the emerging order, and putting Israel on edge as the democratic aspirations of the masses highlighted their solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

Two years later, the heady optimism of the initial months of the uprisings has given way to a drawn out process of social upheaval. In Tunisia and Egypt, dictators Ben Ali and Mubarak were overthrown, but their replacements have failed to deliver on the masses' expectations. The uprisings in Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen, were alternately repressed and co-opted by the Gulf States and the West, while the militarization of the uprising in Syria has put a question mark over the outcome of its revolution. In Palestine the siege on Gaza continues while the settlements continue to expand in the West Bank.

No Human Being Is Illegal!! People Over Profit!!
International Workers Day!! - May 01, 2013
2:00 PM Gather || 3:00 PM Rally || 4:00 PM March
O'Bryant Square - SW Washington Street, Portland Oregon
2013 Theme: "May Day - International Day for Working Families; People Over Profit!"

2:00 PM Gather || 3:00 PM Rally || 4:00 PM March

The annual May Day march and rally in Portland has a long tradition of being an inspiring celebration of international worker's day.

Now, we find ourselves facing unprecedented cuts to public services, increasing poverty, homelessness, and ongoing attacks against people of color, immigrants, women, and working families and our right to organize. Our response to this onslaught against humanity is to organize and fight back!

This year's May Day promises to be an exciting call to action. Our theme is: "May Day - International Day for Working Families; People Over Profit!" Our goal is: "Encourage Everyone to Join an Organization Working for Justice!!"

The Multnomah County Democrats will sponsor a Debate on the Fluoridation of Portland's Drinking Water (Measure 26-151) on Wednesday, April 10 from 7:15 to 8:45 p.m. at the Matt Dishman Community Center, 77 NE Knott Street in Portland. Doors open at 7:00.

Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland will present the pro side. Clean Water Portland will present the con side. Prepared questions from the Multnomah County Democrats and written questions from the audience will be asked by the moderator. There will not be open mic questions from the audience.

No signs will be allowed into the debate room; buttons, t-shirts and stickers are fine. Representatives from both sides will have tables outside the debate room with literature and materials.

Parking is limited, so please carpool, bike, or take public transportation if you can. The Matt Dishman Community Center can be reached via Bus #4/Fessenden, Bus #24/Fremont, Bus #6/MLKing Blvd, and Bus #44/Mocks Crest.

This event will be videotaped and your attendance implies consent to be filmed.

FOUNDER of THE CENTER FOR MEDIA DEMOCRACY, John Stauber is an independent writer, organizer and activist. Stauber will speak in Portland Tuesday, March 19th @7pm at the First Congregational Church as part of the 2013 Illahee Lecture Series: Who Owns You? And What Can You Do About It?

On April 1, the state of Oregon will decide whether or not to approve the Morrow Pacific coal export project. If approved, it would be the first of five proposed coal export facilities to get a green light in the Northwest and open the flood gates for others, creating a climate nightmare. With the health, safety, and economy of dozens of communities from Montana to Oregon at stake, we are sounding the alarm to stop coal exports in the Northwest.

Two weekends at the end of the Social Justice, Real Justice Conference, over two hundred people marched through the streets of Eugene, demanding extractive industries and their financiers be held accountable for their crimes against the earth and its people. We know its going to take sustained, wide spread disruption of the status quo in order to win.

So this coming weekend 1 PM on Sunday 3/3 in conjunction with the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC) we are taking to the streets once again. Meet at the amphitheater in front of the Erb memorial union at the university of Oregon.

The documentary film Alien Boy: the Life and Death of James Chasse explores James Chasse's life and the police actions and decisions that led to his death. What emerges is an intimate and complex story of one man's life, the Chasse family's struggle for justice, and a city and a system grappling with accountability.

On Sept. 17, 2006 James Chasse was stopped by three law enforcement officers on a busy streetcorner in Portland, Oregon. A dozen witnesses watched in horror as officers tackled, beat, kicked, and tasered James until he lay motionless on the pavement with 16 broken ribs and a punctured lung. He died in the custody of Portland police about two hours later.

James had not committed a crime, so why did the officers attack him? Who was James Chasse? Officers told eyewitnesses he was a drug dealer, a homeless person, a non-person, a ghost. But that wasn't true at all. James was a writer, an illustrator, and a musician; he had a home and a family and friends who loved him. He was a small, shy, gentle person who had been living with schizophrenia for most of his life.

Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse examines his childhood, his intense involvement in the early Portland punk music scene, the heart-breaking teenage onset of his schizophrenia, and his brave efforts to avoid institutionalization and maintain his independence. [...]

Want to see the trailer? It's at http://alienboy.orgAlien Boy: the Life and Death of James Chasse plays at Cinema 21, February 24-28.

Rally 2/14/13 @3PM - Directors Park - Downtown Portland Oregon
One Billion Rising is a Global Call to Action to end violence against women and girls by coming together, taking a stand, and dancing in solidarity! According to the UN, one in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. That's one billion women. One billion women violated is an atrocity. Through this movement and day of action our community is voicing its commitment to end violence against women and girls. Globally, there are more than 5000 actions organized from 160 countries! [...]

When: Thursday, February 14, 2013 (F14). We Rally @ 3:00pm and we march @ 3:30pm
Where: Gather at Directors Park, 815 SW Park Ave. for a rally, dance and march through downtown Portland.

After rally and march event: The march will lead to the The First Unitarian Church (1211 SW Main st.) for food, dancing, speakers, workshops, tabling, breakout sessions, and more! [...]

The future of Youth Pass is in jeopardy! Right now there is a $25 million deficit in the City's budget. This means that a lot of programs are in jeopardy, specifically the Youth Bus Pass. If we don't have Youth Pass, many families will be left with the burden of trying to scrape up money for kids to get to school. [...]

If Youth Pass is cut, many of Portland's youth will not be able to get to school and/or jobs.

Youth Pass is important because transit connects students to education, jobs, housing, healthy food options, social services and recreation. Youth Pass means that, regardless of where you live, the color of your skin, or how much money your family has, you have the freedom of mobility and opportunity.